British Pound (GBP), FTSE 100 Steady as the UK Goes to the Polls

GBP/USD and FTSE 100 Analysis and Charts

• GBP / USD boosted by US dollar weakness.
• FTSE 100 underpinned for now.

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Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer is set to be handed the keys to No.10 tomorrow with his party forecast to win the general election by a substantial margin. The latest YouGov MRP poll forecasts Labour winning 431 seats, the Conservative Party 102 seats, with the Liberal Democrats in third place with 72 seats. According to YouGov there are 89 seats where the two top parties are within 5% of each other,

‘What does this mean in practice? Our range for the number of Conservative seats is between 78 and 129 seats, while our range for the Liberal Democrats is between 57 and 87. That means at one end of the realistic possibilities is that we wake up on Friday to find Ed Davey (Liberal Democrats) is Leader of the Opposition. At the other end of possibilities is that the Tories are in a secure second place. The most likely outcome is the Conservatives just over 100 seats, the Liberal Democrats on around 72.’

The polling stations will close tonight at 22:00 UK and counting begins immediately. The BBC estimates that the first seats will be declared around 23:00 UK with the vast majority of seats declared by 06:00 UK on Friday.

Sterling remains rangebound going into the election and will remain that way until the result is known. GBP/USD is trading on either side of 1.2750, boosted in part by a weaker US dollar. Wednesday’s US ISM report showed the economy contracting for the second time in the last three months, while the Business Activity Index slumped to 49.6 from 61.2, the first month of contraction since May 2020.

US markets are closed today for Independence Day, while tomorrow sees the latest US Jobs Report released at 13:30 UK.

GBP/USD Daily Price Chart

The FTSE 100 is trading marginally higher in early turnover after both the Nasdaq 100 and the S&P posted fresh record highs overnight.

FTSE 100 Daily Price Chart

Charts using TradingView

Retail trader data shows 44.15% of traders are net-long with the ratio of traders short to long at 1.26 to 1.The number of traders net-long is 15.38% lower than yesterday and 0.96% lower from last week, while the number of traders net-short is 12.02% higher than yesterday and 4.80% lower from last week.

We typically take a contrarian view to crowd sentiment, and the fact traders are net-short suggests FTSE 100 prices may continue to rise. Positioning is more net-short than yesterday but less net-short from last week. The combination of current sentiment and recent changes gives us a further mixed FTSE 100 trading bias.